Whittemore, Thomas (b. ABT JAN 1593, d. 26 MAY 1661)

Note: Thomas Whittemore came to Massachusetts in 1639, bringing with him his wife and their three living sons. His eldest daughter, by his first wife, if she lived, remained in England, as did the two children by his second wife. As far as is known they never emigrated.

He was a farmer and he carved a farm out of the wilderness in Malden, now Everett, about three miles from Boston. This farm remained in the Whittemore family until it was sold, more than two hundred years later, in 1845.

He left an estate that was inventoried at 286 pounds 15 shillings and six pence.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Whittemore
Title: Bradford Adams Whittemore and Edgar Whittemore, The Whittemore Family i
n America (NEHGR Vols. 106, 107, 108)
n America
n America. NEHGR Vols. 106, 107, 108.

Given Name: Thomas

Death: 26 MAY 1661 Malden, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Given Name: Hannah

Death: AFT 8 JUL 1666

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Richard Cutter was a cooper and was admitted as a freeman--which meant that he 1) had the right to vote, 2) was a church member, and 3) had a net worth of at least 200 pounds--on June 2 1641.

He joined the Royal Artillery Company in 1643. He owned land in Cambridge and when he died he left an estate of 229 pounds, 17 shillings, and 4 pence. But this should not be used to infer that his worth had increased only 29 pounds in fifty years. It was very common practice at that time to distribute major portions of one's estate to the heirs before death.

His gravestone reads

Here lyes ye Body of
Richard Cutter
Aged about 72
Years deid ye 16 of
Jvne 1693

Given Name: Richard

Death: 16 JUN 1693 Probably Cambridge, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Given Name: Elizabeth

Death: AFT 1657

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: George Abbott came to New England with his parents probably about 1642. They settled at Rowley and afterwards, in 1655, moved to Andover. he was a farmer and tailor, and obviously very successful, as he was listed on the tax rolls as one of the five wealthiest men in Andover.

He was a member of Sargeant James Osgood's militia company and was elected a freeman on May 19 1669. He was elected constable for the north side of town on June 3 1680. He very likely held other offices, but the number of George Abbotts living in Andover at that time makes it impossible to tell in all cases which was which.

He was the great great great great grandfather of President Rutherford B. Hayes.

Given Name: George

Death: 22 MAR 1688/89 Andover, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Given Name: Sarah

Death: 12 MAY 1728 Andover, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Thomas Fillebrown was a miller and owned land in Charlestown. Her lived in Cambridge.

He left an estate valued at only sixteen pounds, a distinctly unimpressive sum even by the standards of early New England. But given his evident standing in the community, as judged by whom his children married, it is very likely that he gave away most of his property before he died, a common practice.

He is buried in Harvard Square and his tombstone reads

Here lies ye body of
Thomas Fillebrown
Aged 82 years
who departed
this life
June the 7, 1713

Given Name: Thomas

Death: 7 JUN 1713 Probably Cambridge, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Anna Fillebrown is buried beside her husband in Harvard Square. Her tombstone reads

Here lies ye body of
Anna Fillebrown
wife to
Thomas Fillebrown
Aged 82 years
Died March ye 31, 1713-14


It is comforting to note from her tombstone that even people who lived at the time had trouble keeping old and new style dating straight.

Given Name: Anna

Death: 31 MAR 1714 Cambridge, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Timothy Tileston was made a freeman in 1666 and served as a representative to the General Court in 1689.

He was a cooper and bought the tide-mill known as Tileston's Mill that remained in the family for more than two hundred years.

Given Name: Timothy

Death: 10 AUG 1697 Probably Dorchester, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Given Name: Sarah

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Captain William Torrey came to Massachusetts in 1640, near the end of the Great Migration, bringing with him his two sons by his second wife, who did not live to emigrate. He settled in Weymouth and soon entered into significant offices in the town and colony. In 1641 he was elected a member of the Royal Artillery of Boston and soon after was made a lieutenant. The title captain was used starting about 1655.

He was a member of the House of Deputies from 1642 to 1650, and was afterwards Clerk of the House of Deputies, a very important position, and Recorder of Deeds. His signature appears hundreds of times in the early records of the colony.

Captain Torrey was described by Edward Johnson in his The Wonder Working Providence, published in 1654, as "a good penman and skilled in the Latin Tongue." Torrey was himself the author of A Discourse in Futurities or Things to Come. The original handwritten copy is one of the greatest treasures in the possession of the Boston Public Library and bears the statement "Written with his own hand in the seventy-ninth year of his age and in the Year of Our Lord Sixteen eighty-seven." The book was published in 1754 with a preface by the then-pastor of Old South Church of Boston, the Rev. Mr. Prince. It apparently formed the basis of William Miller's arguments for the imminence of the Second Coming, and thus is the spiritual ancestor of all the modern Adventist churches.

Captain Torrey was a major landowner in the Boston area, owning 124 acres in Weymouth in 1648, where he subsequently bought a hundred more acres. He left his son Samuel 500 acres in his will. His estate was inventoried as having a value of 360 pounds, 10 shillings, and 6 pence.

Through his son Angel he and his third wife, Elizabeth Fry, were the 5th great grandparents of President William Howard Taft.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Torrey
Title: Torrey family Bible

Given Name: William

Death: 6 JUN 1690 OR OCT 1690 Weymouth, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: John Greene was, throughout his long life, one of the most important people in the colony of Rhode Island. He held extensive property around Warwick and in other parts of Rhode Island and held a number of public offices, among them town clerk and surveyor, Representative to the General Court (as members of the lower house of the colonial legislature were called), Deputy (as members of the upper house were called), General recorder, General Solicitor, Attorney General, and Deputy Governor. When the original charters of the New England colonies were revoked and the whole of New England put under the control of Governor Edward Andros, John Greene was appointed by the King to serve on his council, but there is no record of his having attended any of the meetings.

He traveled frequently to England upon the business of Rhode Island.

The gravestones of John and Ann Greene, which were most likely carved in England and brought here--a sure sign of Greene's prosperity--read:


Here lyeth the Here lyeth the body
body of John Greene, Esq. of Ann ye wife of
& late deptie Governr Major John Greene
he departed this life She deceased in the
in ye 89 year of his age 82nd year of her age
November ye 27 1708 May ye 6th 1709

John Greene and Ann Almy are the 7th great grandparents of President Warren G. Harding.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Ancestors of American Presidents
Title: Compiled by Gary Boyd Roberts, Ancestors of American Presidents (Santa C
larita, California: C. Boyer 3rd, in cooperation with the New England H
istoric Genealogical Society, 1995.)
larita, California: C. Boyer 3rd, in cooperation with the New England H
istoric Genealogical Society, 1995.

Given Name: John

Death: 27 NOV 1708 Warwick, Rhode island

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Given Name: Ann

Death: 6 MAY 1709 Warwick, Rhode island

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: The Reverend Zechariah Symmes was one of the most important clergymen in the early Massachusetts Bay Colony, his virtues and those of his wife being lengthily extolled by Cotton Mather in his Magnalia. Symmes was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge--that hotbed of Puritanism--and graduated in 1620. He was a lecturer at St. Anthony's in London, but he moved to Dunstable in Bedfordshire to escape persecution.

He arrived in Boston on Sep 18, 1634, on board the Griffin, with two hundred other passengers including William and Anne Hutchinson, at whose trial he would testify, and the Reverend John Lothrop (No. 7576.).

He was admitted to the Church in Charlestown on Dec 6 1634, and on the 22nd of that month was elected its preacher. He would hold that post for more than thirty years. In 1648 he received a salary of ninety pounds, the largest salary in the colony. (One begins to get an inkling of the Puritan world when one thinks about the largest salary in the colony going to a clergyman.) In addition to his salary the town settled on him 300 acres of farmland extending north from Mystic Pond to the borders of Woburn.

At his death, his estate amounted to 681 pounds, including 85 pounds, 10 shillings and 3 pence worth of books, a very large library for that time and place. He was buried at town expense and the gravestone, now obliterated, read in part

A prophet lies beneath this stone:
His words shall live, though he be gone.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Threfall
Title: John Brooks Threlfall, Twenty-Six Great Migration Colonists to New Engl
and & Their Origins (Madison, Wisconsin: n.p., 1993.)
and & Their Origins
and & Their Origins. Madison, Wisconsin: n.p., 1993.

Page: pp. 289-307.

Given Name: Zechariah

Death: 14 FEB 1670/71 Charlestown, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Edward Johnson, in his Wonder-Working Providence, wrote of Sarah Baker, "Among all the godly women that came through the perilous seas to war their warfare, the wife of this zealous teacher, Mrs. Sarah Symmes, shall not be omitted. This virtuous woman, endowed by Christ with grace fit for a wilderness condition, her courage exceeding her stature, with much cheerfulness did undergo all the difficulties of those times of straits, her God through faith in Christ supplying all wants, with great industry nurturing up her young chuldren in the fear of the Lord; their number being ten, both sons and daughters; a certain sign of the Lord's intent to people this vast wilderness."

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Threfall
Title: John Brooks Threlfall, Twenty-Six Great Migration Colonists to New Engl
and & Their Origins (Madison, Wisconsin: n.p., 1993.)
and & Their Origins
and & Their Origins. Madison, Wisconsin: n.p., 1993.

Page: pp. 289-307.

Given Name: Sarah

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Francis Chickering emigrated with his wife and two children to Massachusetts in 1637. He was made a freeman on May 13 1640 and held a number of offices, among them he served as a representative in 1644 and 1653. He was a member of the Royal Artillery Company, later serving as an ensign.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Boyer
Title: Carl Boyer, Ancestral Lines (by the Author, 1998, 3rd Edition)

Page: pp. 213-214

Given Name: Francis

Death: 10 OCT 1658

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Given Name: Anne

Death: 5 DEC 1649 Probably Dedham, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Deacon Samuel Bass arrived in Massachusetts in 1633, in Roxbury, where he was admitted to membership in the Reverend John Eliot's church. Not long afterwards he moved to Braintree, where he lived the rest of his life.

The town records of Braintree record that "Deacon Samuel Bass, aged 94, departed this life upon the 30th Day of December 1694, who had bin a Deacon of the Church of Braintree for the space of 50 years, and was the father and grandfather and great grandfather of a hundred and sixty and two children before he died, the youngest whereof was Benimin Bas, the son of Joseph Bas and Mary his wife, born seven days before his death."

He represented the town in twelve General Courts, serving on important committees. A farmer by trade, owning 166 acres in and near Braintree, he nevertheless found the time to serve as selectman innumerable times.

Samuel Bass and Ann Savell are the 8th great grandparents of President Calvin Coolidge.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Anderson
Title: Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New E
ngland 1620-1633 (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historical and Gen
ealogical Society, 1995)
ngland 1620-1633
ngland 1620-1633. Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historical and Gen
ealogical Society, 1995.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Ancestors of American Presidents
Title: Compiled by Gary Boyd Roberts, Ancestors of American Presidents (Santa C
larita, California: C. Boyer 3rd, in cooperation with the New England H
istoric Genealogical Society, 1995.)
larita, California: C. Boyer 3rd, in cooperation with the New England H
istoric Genealogical Society, 1995.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Alden
Title: Woodworth-Barnes, Esther Littleford, Mayflower Families Through Five Ge
nerations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., D
ecember 1620.
Vol 16, Part 1: Family of John Alden (New York: General Society of Mayf
lower Descendants, 1999)
nerations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., D
ecember 1620.
Vol 16, Part 1: Family of John Alden
nerations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., D
ecember 1620.
Vol 16, Part 1: Family of John Alden. New York: General Society of Mayf
lower Descendants, 1999.

Given Name: Samuel

Death: 30 DEC 1694 Braintree, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Anderson
Title: Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New E
ngland 1620-1633 (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historical and Gen
ealogical Society, 1995)
ngland 1620-1633
ngland 1620-1633. Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historical and Gen
ealogical Society, 1995.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Ancestors of American Presidents
Title: Compiled by Gary Boyd Roberts, Ancestors of American Presidents (Santa C
larita, California: C. Boyer 3rd, in cooperation with the New England H
istoric Genealogical Society, 1995.)
larita, California: C. Boyer 3rd, in cooperation with the New England H
istoric Genealogical Society, 1995.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Alden
Title: Woodworth-Barnes, Esther Littleford, Mayflower Families Through Five Ge
nerations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., D
ecember 1620.
Vol 16, Part 1: Family of John Alden (New York: General Society of Mayf
lower Descendants, 1999)
nerations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., D
ecember 1620.
Vol 16, Part 1: Family of John Alden
nerations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., D
ecember 1620.
Vol 16, Part 1: Family of John Alden. New York: General Society of Mayf
lower Descendants, 1999.

Given Name: Ann

Death: 5 SEP 1693 Braintree, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Among the most famous of all my American ancestors, John Alden and Priscilla Mullins are a classic example of stumbling into history. Alden was a cooper and, because of his needed skills, was recruited for the Mayflower before it sailed in the autumn of 1620. Thus he was not one of the saints--i.e. of the sect that organized the expedition--but one of the strangers, those who were added to the roster because of their skills.

Although assured of fame by virtue of having sailed on the Mayflower, they became even more famous because one of their vast progeny, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote a poem about their love affair. This legend--of Alden going to Priscilla to press the suit of his friend Miles Standish and she preferring the messenger to the message--has no documentary evidence but it is very ancient and might be true.

Alden was the last surviving male passenger and signer of the Mayflower Compact. He served as surveyor of highways, deputy from Duxbury to the General Court, as a member of the colony's war council, treasurer, and as governor's assistant for many years, an important position. He was Deputy Governor of Plymouth Colony in 1664-65 and in 1677. He also served on the jury of one of the two witch trials held in Plymouth. In both these trials the defendant was acquitted while the accuser was convicted of libel, fined, and whipped.

After living in Plymouth for a few years he moved to Duxbury where he was granted a farm of about 169 acres. He later was granted an additional farm in Bridgewater. His house still stands, one of the greatest tourist attractions in Massachusetts.

Despite a great deal of research, John Alden's ancestry remains uncertain. All that is known for sure is that he was hired in Southampton, England, for his skills as a cooper and that he must have had a good education judging from the positions of responsibility in which he was very soon placed when he settled in the Plymouth colony. Because he and Priscilla had ten children, all of whom lived to maturity and eight of whom married and had children of their own, the Alden descent is by far the most common of Mayflower descents. The genealogist who uncovers his English origins will have instant fame in the genealogical community.

John Alden and Priscilla Mullins were the 3rd great grandparents of President John Adams and the 4th great grandparents of President John Quincy Adams. They are also the 9th great grandparents of Vice President Dan Quayle.

Article about John Alden appears in the Dictionary of American Biography and the American National Biography.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: DAB
Title: Dictionary of American Biography

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Anderson
Title: Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New E
ngland 1620-1633 (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historical and Gen
ealogical Society, 1995)
ngland 1620-1633
ngland 1620-1633. Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historical and Gen
ealogical Society, 1995.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Ancestors of American Presidents
Title: Compiled by Gary Boyd Roberts, Ancestors of American Presidents (Santa C
larita, California: C. Boyer 3rd, in cooperation with the New England H
istoric Genealogical Society, 1995.)
larita, California: C. Boyer 3rd, in cooperation with the New England H
istoric Genealogical Society, 1995.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Alden
Title: Woodworth-Barnes, Esther Littleford, Mayflower Families Through Five Ge
nerations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., D
ecember 1620.
Vol 16, Part 1: Family of John Alden (New York: General Society of Mayf
lower Descendants, 1999)
nerations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., D
ecember 1620.
Vol 16, Part 1: Family of John Alden
nerations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., D
ecember 1620.
Vol 16, Part 1: Family of John Alden. New York: General Society of Mayf
lower Descendants, 1999.

Given Name: John

Death: 9 SEP 1687 Duxbury, Massachusetts

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003